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Mike Argento: There's nothing accidental about racism

MIKE ARGENTO

Updated:
04/12/2013 02:48:10 PM EDT

It's times like this that I really miss my old friend Ed Berry.

Ed was a bona fide war hero, a barroom philosopher, a history buff. He served in the Army during Vietnam and won a Silver Star, among other decorations, for his valor, which he described, mostly, as youthful stupidity, not knowing just how dangerous it was to charge up a hill to save some of his buddies from certain death.

Ed was a good guy, funny, profane, all of that.

And that's why he'd come in handy right about now. I'm certain he'd have something very funny and very profane to say about the Brad Paisley-LL Cool J collaboration, "Accidental Racist."

The song, in case you haven't heard, has set off a storm of controversy and criticism and wringing of hands over its subject matter, a very feeble and superficial attempt to address the issue of race in America.

The song has managed to irritate everybody. African-American commentators have called the song itself racist.

Liberals have concurred, and have expressed Caucasian embarrassment at being represented by Paisley.

Conservatives decried the tune as a blatant kow-towing to political correctitude and have disowned Paisley as a member of their tribe, as if he were ever one to begin with.

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Even the over-the-top bigots and anti-Semites who lurk in the dark corners of the Internet have denounced the song. (On one such site, Stormfront, the song is said to be the work of the Jews. Of course, they think everything's the work of the Jews -- interleague play in major league baseball, those child-proof caps on Oxycontin prescriptions, rain.)

CNN's Jake Tapper described it as "one bong hit away from being a South Park parody." Culture critic Christopher John Farley added, "Maybe half a bong hit."

Now, Paisley and LL Cool J say they meant well by pointing out and defending stereotypes. In the song, Paisley wants to be able to wear a shirt with a Confederate flag on it to express his allegiance to Lynyrd Skynyrd, not the Confederate States of America. LL Cool J wants to be able to wear a do-rag and gold chains without having people making assumptions about the content of his character.

Still, the song, intended to bridge the race gap, has provided fodder for further widening it. In a way, it has been wildly successful -- in that it has united people of different races and political ideologies in their hatred of it.

And that point, among others, would not have been lost on Ed. Ed had had enough of people who meant well. More often than not, they wind up doing more harm than good, he always said. And he always said it didn't matter whether it was accidental, or caused by not knowing better, or the result of ignorance or hatred, racism is racism. There's nothing accidental about it.

The song starts:

"To the man that waited on me at the Starbucks down on Main, I hope you understand,

"When I put on that T-shirt, the only thing I meant to say is I'm a Skynyrd fan."

"The red flag on my chest somehow is like the elephant in the corner of the south,

"And I just walked him right in the room

"Just a proud rebel son with an 'ol can of worms."

Ed would have liked that. He had some strong views about the Confederate flag. He was a Civil War buff, and in his view, the Confederate flag was a symbol of treason and that people who wore it weren't expressing their love and admiration of the band that created "Freebird," they were expressing their support of a bunch of rogue states to declare war on the United States of America. They were, in fact, committing treason, Ed always said.

Brad Paisley, Ed would proclaim, is a traitor.

I can here him saying it. I also could hear him saying that some hipster who works at Starbucks isn't even going to know or care what Skynyrd is.

One of the more laughable parts of the song comes when Paisley and LL Cool J have a kind of shout and response thing happening during the chorus, alternating lines. LL Cool J's lines are in parenthesis, just in case you miss the subtlety of the words.

"I'm just a white man,

"(If you don't judge my do-rag)

"Comin' to you from the southland,

"(I won't judge your red flag)

"Tryin' to understand what it's like not to be."

"I'm proud of where I'm from

"(If you don't judge my gold chains)

"But not everything we've done

"(I'll forget the iron chains)

"It ain't like you and me can re-write history,

"(Can't re-write history baby.)

So LL Cool J is saying he is OK with the Confederate flag, a symbol carried by people who went to war with their own country for the right to own people, so long as Paisley doesn't judge him because he wears a do-rag. And LL Cool J will forget about that whole slavery thing -- the nation's original sin and one that haunts us to this day -- so long as Paisley doesn't make any assumptions about LL Cool J's fondness for gold chains.

Sounds fair enough.

I can hear what Ed would say.

He would say it's a pretty bad song and that LL Cool J isn't Otis Redding or Marvin Gaye, or even Snoop Lion or RZA, and that maybe Paisley should heed the advice of the late, great Frank Zappa and just shut up and play his guitar.

Mike Argento's column appears Mondays and Fridays in Living and Sundays in Viewpoints. Reach him at mike@ydr.com or 771-2046. Read more Argento columns at www.ydr.com/mike. Or follow him on Twitter at FnMikeArgento.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Brad Paisley, left, and LL Cool J perform together on 'Accidental Racist,' a song on Paisley's new album, Wheelhouse.